"Awesome!" said his friend, 11-year-old Alex Sweeney of
Murrieta, looking at the brown and white shell with its chambers of
increasing size.

Along with Mathew Tessier of Murrieta, who turns 12 on Sunday,
they are among 42 middle school students taking part in a free
weeklong camp at UC Riverside.

Clute, a math and education professor at UCR and executive
director of the ALPHA Center on campus, developed the Healthy
Body-Healthy Mind program. The center is offering four other camps
this summer.

Healthy Body is free to children, who come primarily from
Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Clute got funding from
grants and the Children's Spine Foundation of Riverside. To take
part, the children have to write an essay explaining what they hope
to learn, have their parents vouch that they will be well-behaved
and get a recommendation from a teacher. About half of the
applicants received a spot in the camp, Clute said. It is not a
remedial program, Clute said, but a "mind-expanding institute."

By weaving together math, science, health and physical fitness,
Clute hopes to show her young charges that math applies to everyday
life.

"I don't want them to think of it (math) as problems on a page,"
she said. "I want it connected to life. I want them to have an
appreciation for the importance of their health."

Wednesday's lesson focused on recursion, a pattern of numbers
that when mapped, makes a growing spiral. In mathematical terms,
that spiral of growth is called a logarithm.

"This beautiful spiral is the most important spiral in nature,"
Clute told the children. It can be seen in the shape of a wave or a
galaxy or the curves of a spine. "It's the spiral you see on the
horn of an animal, even the beak of a parrot comes from this
spiral," she said.

Along with the math lesson, they got some history. The children
learned that Leonardo Fibonacci, a mathematician from 12th-century
Italy who developed the recursive sequence, persuaded Europe to
replace Roman numerals with Arabic ones, which were being used in
Africa at the time.

The children have a math lesson in the morning, listen to a
lecture on health and then work out for an hour. So far this week,
they learned about teeth and osteoporosis. On one day, Clute
explained that some of the parts of a weight machine are put
together in a mathematical pattern.

On Wednesday, Dr. Thomas Haider, president of Haider Spine
Center in Riverside and founder and president of the Children's
Spine Foundation, spoke about the importance of getting screened
for scoliosis in junior high and using a backpack on wheels, rather
than toting around a heavy sack.

The three boys said they love the program.

"I got to learn all new stuff and get ahead in my classes" like
geometry and health, Mathew said.

"It's fun," Alex said. "You get to learn … new short cuts for
math and you get to run. It helps you out physically and
stuff."

Ian said he hopes the extra math helps him in class this year,
but the fitness segment is his favorite.